


Under the rubble

by imsfire



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath, Danger, F/M, Fear, Gen, Medical stuff, Prompt Fill, Rescue, Trapped, a mission that has turned dangerous in unexpected ways, enemies turned allies, thirst, warning for claustrophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-10 17:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11696070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: If anyone can reach them, there’s no reason they shouldn’t both live.  But they are trapped, completely boxed-in, and without water it’s questionable how long they’ll survive.  If there even is anyone to come to the rescue...





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the tumblr prompt "Thirst" (only I'm an idiot and I've forgotten whose prompt it was, sorry!).

Thirst.  Such thirst.

He’d had no water on him when it happened, and his mouth is thick with dust now, his skin dry and nostrils caked, his eyes sore with it.  The injured ‘trooper is quiet at the moment, breath fluttering weakly inside his mask; perhaps unconscious, perhaps sleeping, but he’ll wake again soon, he’s in too much pain. 

If he asks for help again, Cassian isn’t sure how many more excuses he can give.  Some would call it sadism, not to despatch an enemy who begs for death.  But he won’t do it.  They were buried together and they’ll get out together.

The Stormtrooper was the only man from Commander Koberen’s party assigned to accompany him inside the building; the only one the Imperial had trusted enough to let him see who they were meeting.  His army number is all Cassian knows of him.  TN 2239.  He thinks of the young man as Tinny, listening as the day wears on to his quiet voice, distorted by pain and by the mechanism of his mouthpiece.

They’d been guarding the door at the foot of the staircase, while their respective commanding officers discussed an exchange of information and the possibility of a mass defection.  Cassian knows that’s why Draven came all this way; it would be a huge coup, if they could pull it off.  Koberen has high-level access and claims to know senior staffers who want out.  But the Commander wants reassurances beyond what a regular Captain could offer.  He’d smiled coldly when Cassian said what he thought the man needed to hear, and reminded him that he couldn’t guarantee to follow through on what he was promising.  _I need to hear that from the highest levels, not just from someone who says he speaks for them.  I need to talk to your CO._

It was a risk, but a calculated one, and on balance, Draven had felt, worth it.  They could get out pretty quickly if this went bad; the shuttle they flew in on is parked on the roof.

So there they were, face to face, the undercover General and the Imperial Commander, shaking hands stiffly and walking side by side up the staircase; and there were Cassian and TN 2239, either side of the doorway, each giving the another a single appraising glance and then waiting, hands on their weapons.  The bodyguards. 

And then suddenly the floor had seemed to ripple like a series of storm waves, and the very air groaned; and walls fell, everywhere.

He hadn’t heard any weapons-fire or explosions but the vast unnatural noise, the shaking ground, took him straight back to Jedha as if the Death Star strike had been yesterday and not three years ago.  He’d tried to brace himself when the world shuddered on itself like a fever; tried to run, to get to the stairs, as the building crashed around him.  An attack, another superweapon; rage and a sick fear came clawing up inside him at the nightmare.  Then the next tremor hit and he was thrown bodily to the ground.  He couldn’t even get back up onto his knees.  The whole building a collapsing storm, a hurricane of stone. 

He heard himself screaming; an animal instinct he couldn’t supress. Insanely all he could think was that this time, he wouldn’t be able to get to Jyn.  Jyn, far away and safe on Lothal; and in his mind, with every old fear triggered, Jyn torn limb from limb and buried under rubble in the Jedhan blast wave.

He lay whimpering and choking for a long time when the tremors faded.  The dust had blinded him and filled his mouth.  He wanted to cry and every muscle in his body seemed to have gone slack with shock.  But he was alive.  

He still is, almost a night and a day later.  Whether it was good luck, or the very worst, is another thing entirely.  He’s alive, and trapped, with neither food nor water. 

Somehow, in falling, the massive granite pillars of the doorframe and the steel-and-bronze door itself have become interlocked, creating a stable pocket of air just over a foot deep as the wreckage settled.  Cassian and TN2239 are both in that space, protected by the slanting panels of the collapsed door. 

When the ‘trooper realised Cassian thought it was an Imperial assault he’d laughed, his mechanised voice tinged with hysteria.  “It’s a quake, that’s all, just another kriffing earthquake, we get them all the time here.”

Just an earthquake; though he doubts they get many as severe as this, all the same.

TN2239 is pinned by his legs, and clearly in pain, though he doesn’t seem to be bleeding and claims he can move one foot under the rubble.  Cassian knows he should be grateful; when his initial panic eased enough for him to make a rational assessment, he realised he’d got off almost unhurt.  A flying splinter of glass gouged him in the neck but it missed the carotid and the bleeding has gradually slowed to a seeping trickle.  If anyone can reach them, there’s no reason they shouldn’t both live.  But they are trapped, completely boxed-in, and without water it’s questionable how long they’ll survive.  If there even is anyone to come to the rescue...

He tries not to move too much.  Moving stirs up the dust, and inhaling that makes him cough; and the effort of coughing tends to start the wound in his neck bleeding again.  Blood loss will just exacerbate the thirst that is already starting to torture him.  He lies quietly on his side a few feet from the unconscious ‘trooper.

Perhaps the man isn’t unconscious; his breathing sounds slightly different.  “Hey…” Cassian whispers, cautiously.  

Dry lips and a swollen tongue make it uncomfortable to speak but he feels strangely guilty that he can’t free his companion’s legs and Tinny must just lie and suffer.  Perhaps if they can talk a little it will help them both to cope.

“Hey,” comes the crackly reply after a moment.  “You still here, rebel?”

“Still here, Tinny.”

“I thought you called us Bucket-heads?  Where did ‘Tinny’ come from?”

“I don’t know your name, so –“ he raps gently on the chest-plate where the number is etched.  “Can’t think of you as TN2239, my little rebel brain won’t deal with that, you know?”

“What’s your name, then, reb?”

“Cassian.”  Why not? - after all they could be down here a while.  They may yet be going to die together.  So fuck Joreth Sward and all the other hideous false identities.  He is himself.  “Cassian Andor.”

“I’m Wing Tozer.  ‘Tinny’, huh?  I kinda like that, makes me sound like a kids’ toy…”

“How are you feeling, Tozer?”

“Like crap, so, no change.  You?”

Cassian rubs a hand over his face, feeling the dust of broken brick and stone scrape across his skin.  “Same.”  As the adrenalin rush of shock and fear first began to ease, he’d felt nauseous for a time and then cold, but now that too has faded and he’s just dully, quietly, rationally afraid; afraid and frustrated, and weirdly bored.  And thirsty.

“D’you suppose your man got out?” Tozer asks.

“I don’t know.  He’s a resourceful guy, so maybe.  It depends on how the building collapsed.”

“Huh?  It collapsed is how, boom, fell down.”

“No, but – if the lower storeys collapsed inward but the upper ones just settled on top, then the General and the Commander have a good chance, and anyone else up there near them.  Maybe even our shuttle could be okay.  If the stairwells and lift-shafts held then areas adjacent to them could still be undamaged.  Or if just one corner of the building fell, the rest could still be sound, I’ve heard of that happening too.”  That’s too much speaking at one go and he starts to cough again.  It feels more and more as though the dust is turning to mud inside him.  He’s probably swallowed a certain amount, on top of what he’s breathed in.  There’s a stabbing sensation at his throat and he raises one hand to touch the place and bring away fingertips red with new blood.  “Krif…”

“Didn’t realise there was so much science to it.”  Tozer shifts his helmeted head awkwardly on the cracked floor tiles, turning to regard Cassian through his eye mask.  “Careful with that neck wound, reb, don’t set the bleeding off again.”

“Too late.” 

There’s a pause.  Cassian rolls carefully onto his side, into what he remembers being told is the safest position to lie in when injured.  Tozer turns back to the metal above him.  He gives a stifled groan with the movement.

“It’s okay, hang on there,” Cassian says.  It feels futile, trying to console an injured man, trying to keep his own hopes up, but he digs deep into his dry sad heart and carries on with the discussion of probable quake outcomes.  “I’m just trying to say that our chances vary according to the structural engineering –“ He has to break off to cough and Tozer starts to speak as he gets his breath again.

“Never been much of a one for engineering and that, myself.  Too much math, you know?  You an engineer before you joined the rebs, then?”

“No.”  It’s too complicated to explain.  He says simply “I’m a pilot, plus, you know, the obvious.”

“Obvious?”

“Spy.”

“What’s obvious about spying?  Surely obvious is the last thing that’s meant to be!”

A joke.  This is the man who a few hours ago was saying _If no-one finds us please kill me, I need you to promise me_. They’re trapped in an earthquake-demolished building and the man with both legs under the rubble has begun joking.  Perhaps he’s losing it. 

Or perhaps they will make it, after all.  Cassian would rather think that.  He needs anchors for his own hope, pretty much exactly as much as Tozer. 

If only they had some water.

“So how come you keep coughing? – you got a lung problem?”

“I just breathed in a lot of dust, that’s all,” Cassian says.  “I think some of it stuck on the way down.”

“Wanna borrow my helmet for a bit?”

It’s a baffling non-sequitur, and he frowns at the masked face in bewilderment.  “Huh?”

“It has a filter.  I don’t get any dust inside here.  Just half a karking house on top of me.”

“Oh…”  He’s not sure if there’s any point now, but gives a cautious “Maybe?” and next moment Tozer is raising his arms, awkward in the confined space, and taking hold of the brim of his headgear.  He wrestles off the helm, revealing cropped hair and a bony brown face with a long nose. 

“Here you go.  It just slides over.  That’s it.”

Cassian doesn’t like to tell him he’s worn plenty of Imperial gear before.  He works the helmet on carefully; and it’s true, it does stop the dust.  If he’d been wearing it when the building fell he wouldn’t have come off so badly.  It isn’t particularly comfortable, though; part of the lower edge presses right on the neck injury and he has to pull it off after only a few seconds.  He can feel fresh blood welling up.  “It’s no good.  Do you want me to help you put it on again?”

“Nah.  I see what you mean about dust, but – it’s kinda nice to not have it on for once.  Nobody here  gonna have me up on a charge, right?”

The helmet sits between them on the ruined floor.

There’s a certain amount of daylight, creeping down somehow through the wreckage; they were able to tell when it was night, and when the dawn came again.  But now, partway through the day, it’s impossible to know how much time has passed.  Cassian swallows, dust into dust, and tries not to think about death from dehydration.  It seems even more cruel now that Wing Tozer is a human voice, a human face; a human pair of eyes, almond-shaped and thoughtful and as brown as his own.

He’d like to go on talking but it’s getting harder to form words inside his desiccated mouth, harder to move the clumsy swollen thing that is his tongue. 

“Why’d you join up, then, Wing?”

“Cos I want peace, and everyone says it’s a good thing to do your duty.  And the army’s a good employer; fair pay, and it’s paid regular; decent food, you get to travel, plus, finish a full twenty years and there’s veterans’ colonies and a pension, and health-care for your family.  You rebs don’t have any of that, do you?”

“Eh?  We have medics, same as you.  And the food’s okay; or, well, we always eat, anyway.  Pensions, pay, not so much.  And Force knows I don’t want to travel anymore.  I’ve travelled more than enough in my life.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-nine.”  He coughs again.  “Damn it, I want to see thirty.  Most of my life I never thought I would.  I want to live to kriffing thirty.”

“Fuck thirty, I’d like to see twenty,” says Tozer.  “You married?”

“Partnered.”

“Where are they?  Not here, I hope?”

Cassian shakes his head carefully.  “Safe on Lothal.  Well, safer than this, anyway.”

He sees her face, all blunt guardedness, hiding her fear in irritability.  Remembers her quick going-away kiss, her steadfast refusal to say anything too much like an adieu; her superstition, which she refuses to call one, that saying your goodbyes makes them more likely to be permanent.  How he’s teased her for it.  Loved her for it.  Always tried to accept it, even as he wants to hold her close and murmur the sweetest words of farewell and promise...

“Any little ones?”

_Please, sweet Life, let us get out of here, let us get home, I want to see thirty, I want to see Jyn, I want to see the war end and have a family, is that so much?  It is so much.  It’s too much._

_I mustn’t think like this…_

“No.  Maybe one day, but – not the right time, you know.”  He almost says _When the war’s over_ but perhaps that isn’t the most tactful turn of phrase in present company.  He clears his throat.  It’s getting more painful each time, and his voice is shrinking into a thin dry whisper.  “How about you?”

“I had a girlfriend, back at high school.  She said she’d wait for me.  Not the twenty years, I mean!  But till I finish my first tour of duty.  Nerine.  Skin like gold.  Funniest girl I ever dated, she could make me laugh about anything.  She’d have us both rolling around, she was here.”  Tozer closes his eyes for  second and swallows hard.  “Krif, I’m scared.  I can just hear her laugh, you know?  What if I’m never going to see her again?  I’m going to die down here, aren’t I?”

“Hang on, don’t give in.”  It sounds feeble, but he’s not sure how to keep the boy’s spirits up; how do you cheer on a total stranger who’s never shared a single value with you?  “Nerine, think about Nerine.  This is kriffing shavit, I know, being stuck here in the dust.  But remember you want to go home to her.  Don’t give up.”

“You sound like a motivational preacher with a bad cold.”

“That’s more like it.  Give me another joke, go on.  No panicking; panic uses up the air faster.”

Dry, so dry; his mouth is a ditch full of dust, his tongue like a block of wood.  And it will get worse, before it gets better.

It will get better; it has to.  They will get out; someone, something, somehow, will come for them.   

There’ll be Jyn, someday, when he gets home, telling him in a shaking voice that she _worries_ when he gets in trouble on missions, she knows she shouldn’t but she _does_ and _please_ won’t he try to come back not needing a med-bay for once…

There’ll be voices, sometime, soon, coming down through the rubble, there’ll be the sound of things shifting above them, not sliding further down in another aftershock but being lifted away, purposeful.  There’ll be an arm reaching in, holding out a water bottle, holding out life.

He hopes.


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank the Force_ isn’t something he’s much given to thinking, let alone to thinking at the sight of Jyn Erso.

She pulls up her mask when she sees him.  It leaves the lower part of her face pristine apart from a sheen of sweat, while the skin of her forehead and around her eyes is grimy with dust and dirt, her dark hair whitened with it.  She’s with a digging crew that has just come in for a water break. 

She looks stressed and grim and resolute.  She pushes her way through to his side, moving carefully between the huddles of exhausted rescue workers, medics and rescued civilians. 

Considering what she must be thinking, she’s impressively impassive.

Davits Draven wonders again if he missed a trick when he steered her towards the Pathfinders instead of Intelligence. 

He hopes she knows his cover for this mission.

“Mr Dralo –“ _oh yes, she knows_ – “It’s so good to see you, sir.  Are you okay?” 

It occurs to him that he has no idea what cover _she’s_ using, and he bites down hard on a shudder of hysterical laughter.   He’s going to have to count on Jyn’s infiltration skills now, like it or not.

He’s exhausted, body and mind shaken in the dust until he feels little more cohesive than dust himself.  He reaches out for her hand and grips it, and his eagerness isn’t all feigned by any means. 

_Pull yourself together, man_.

_Or on second thoughts, krif that; Devon Dralo, businessman tendering for Imperial medical contracts, wouldn’t be **together** at all right now, so you needn’t be, either.  You’ve been in an earthquake, you’re entitled to be in shock_.

“How did you get here?” he blurts.  _Good, that’s good, keep in character, you can do this_. 

He’s shaking slightly, the burn-out from a day and a night running on nothing but adrenaline and two emergency energy bars.

“We flew in  this morning with the Bothan Aid convoy.  They’ve brought a whole bunch of volunteers from all over.  Red Service are here, sir, and MSF.  Several of us from the Company came as soon as we could.  We want to help.  Bo’s here too –“ _She means_ _Rook, good grief_ – “and a few others, and we brought a big donation of supplies too, water purifiers and med-kits –“ _good work, Erso,_ he wants to say, _good cover story_ –“When I heard the news I went straight into the office and before I even spoke Director Monlo said ‘Lianna, we need to help these people’ so we just organised it and we came straightaway.  Kes and Co. are here too.  Are you okay, sir?”

He did miss a trick alright.  She’s doing brilliantly.  She’s on-point as regards characterisation, one would never recognise taciturn Sgt Erso in this hasty verbose woman; and with this breathy gabble of details she’s given him a dozen salient points, names of who’s here,  even the coded indicators that she’s been in contact with _Home One_ and the mission has been cleared at high level. 

The knowledge surges in him, irrelevant and intensely painful, that he will actually enjoy admitting he was wrong about her capabilities to Cassian.  If they get him out alive.

_Dammit, why did I insist on him being my second on this?  The best agent I have and I may have gotten him killed._

_Stay in character, idiot._

“I’m – I’m okay, Miss Hallik.  I took a few knocks but nothing serious.  My contact has a broken arm but he was kind enough to tell me we’ll be able to conclude our negotiations as soon as his medical treatment is compete.  I imagine all the injured will be evacuated off-planet very soon.  Perhaps Red Service are anticipating this –“ _her nod is barely perceptible but it’s there.  Damn Bothan efficiency; and thank the Force for it, too; they’ll be able to offer asylum to Koberen if he wants to make a run for it_.  “But –“ _say it, get it out, this is going to be hard but say it_ –“ Miss Hallik, I’m afraid Willix was on the floor below me when the tremors began, he’s still buried, I’m worried sick –“ and again, krif it, this isn’t acting, his voice is jumping like a broken toy; and as Jyn’s face freezes for a moment and then quivers perceptibly he knows she isn’t faking it either.  “The rescue service have said there are a lot of heat signatures under the rubble,” he tells her quickly. “But the survivors have been in there more than a standard day already.  The remaining structure’s very unstable, they’ve moved all the amateur diggers like me off-site.  It’s a job for the people with specialist experience now.”

“Where were you when it happened?” Jyn asks hoarsely.

Draven points to the ruins looming above them, the stately building now neatly halved down its north-south axis.  The western section and everything between the two elevator shafts is mostly intact.  His stranded shuttle still perches on the roof pad, pinned down now by a fallen signalling antenna, its starboard engine stove-in by the impact.  The access staircase juts nakedly up beside the wreck, a skeletal finger of granite.  But on the eastern side, facing down into the ruined street, four storeys of solid three-hundred-year-old masonry have folded in on themselves and tilted down, like a pile of falling books, tipped against the elevator shafts and remaining intact walls.

Jyn says “I’ve been assigned to a different detail.  But I can see that building from where we’re working.  I’ll keep an eye out, let you know if I see anything.”

“I’ll do likewise when I’m back out there.  I need to get back to work…”

“You shouldn’t be working, sir.  _Sir._   I’m serious.  You’re a victim, not a volunteer, you need to rest and get medical attention.”

“Already done.  I’m not a casualty, not even walking wounded.  I’m more than fit enough to help in a bucket chain.”

“The Bothans have brought heavy lifting gear and anti-grav units.  Pretty soon they won’t need bucket chains any longer.  How long have you been working?  You should stop and rest, sir.”

“Since I got out – are you trying to give me orders?”

“You should rest.  Let fresh people take over.  Please.”  Her face is unusually hostile and buttoned, even for Erso.  Well, fair enough, he did just tell her a four storey building fell on her partner.  She can’t very well abuse him to his face and stay in character, and she must be hurting. 

He says “You’re right” through a tight jaw.  Sees her eyes widen slightly. 

_There will be time to decide whether to make a disciplinary offence of this, when we get out of here.  Time enough, when I know if Cassian has survived.  Let the girl be right for now, there are more important things to consider than her insubordination…_

Draven lets himself sink down again on the improvised seat between the queue for the medics and that for the water tanker.  He can sit for a little longer.  He’ll be more use when he does go back, if he’s rested.  But he’s alive; he has to help, somehow.  He’s alive, and better men are dead, or may be. 

He closes his eyes and feels sick to the stomach; feels his age, in every aching joint and torn fingernail and bloodied palm, and every taste of hell he’s spat out into the dust, the last twenty-four hours. 

_I’ve lived through too many hells._

_I want not to have killed my second-in-command with this kriffing negotiation._

_I want this to end. I want to live somewhere other than hell, someday, somehow._

**

When Jyn looks back in his direction, he’s slid over onto his side on the bench and is asleep. 

She still sometimes catches herself thinking she’d like to hate Draven; the desire surfaces at intervals and today it’s very hard to keep down.  He sent Cassian on this mission, insisted he stay for the entirety.  But he’s only been trying to do his job, as he sees it; and an earthquake, one of the sector’s biggest in a decade, is hardly something she can blame the General for.

He looks as if he’s been digging almost non-stop; filthy, exhausted, pale dust coating his rusty hair and caked in the lines on his face.  No, she can’t be angry with him, not this time, not when he’s doing exactly the same thing as her.

She remains seated on the rough bench beside him for a minute more, staring at the chaotic scenes around her.  Piles of rubble, shattered buildings, the half-blocked streets and the adjacent plaza packed with people.  On her right is an improvised field med-centre with a dozen medics working under canvas shelters marked with the Red Sigil; there are hover-dollies for beds, and lines of injured people waiting for triage.  Here inside the tented support station, groups of diggers rest, too weary to talk, while out in the open, others labour on in the clouds of dust, under the incongruous sunshine.  The plaza beyond is packed with survivors, the unhurt or barely-hurt, just sitting on the ground, numb with trauma.

This may officially be an extraction mission, but she and the rest of the team will dig for survivors until there’s no hope left for their second target.  They’ve spread out through the worst-hit district, joining digging crews, setting their hands to whatever needs to be done.  Rendezvous is set for three days from arrival, and extraction is promised on one of the Red Service evac ships.  For now, no-one else bar them and the Bothans seems to be working, just the locals, and survivors like General Draven.  And there’s so much work to be done.

This is an Imperial-occupied world.  As they flew in, she’d expected to find the Empire’s nightmarish obsessive planning and organising to have kicked-in by now, for there to be strategies and systems in place, troopers mobilised, emergency services and supplies being shipped in from the northern continent or from off-world.  She was half-expecting her hardest task to be dealing with them, not physically helping to dig survivors out of the ruins.  This is the Empire; organising the fuck out of everything is the one thing they’re good at, isn’t it?  

What use is their hierarchy, their anally-precise insistence on protocol and procedure and systems and obedience, and everyone knowing their job and their place – what kriffing use is any of that if it all breaks down the moment trouble strikes?  They can’t just blow the whole fucking lot to smithereens every time and pretend there was nothing there to begin with, not now there’s no Death Star to do the job. 

Surely there’s a procedure for natural disasters? 

But a night and a day after the tremors struck, it’s clear this shattered place is still waiting for their Imperial masters even to bother to organise here.  If the Bothan charities hadn’t swung into action she doubts there’d be anything more sophisticated than poor General Draven’s bucket chain, even now.  And without Spynet’s support, her crew from the Alliance wouldn’t be here at all.

The team have all had time to refill water bottles and rest, and grab an energy bar or a piece of bread from the primitive supply stand on the corner of the plaza.  Across the way she can see one of the larger anti-grav platforms is in place now at the top of the collapsed structure where Cassian is trapped.  Trapped; she has to remind herself of that; he’s trapped, not buried, _not buried_.  Draven said there were a lot of survivors under the rubble.  Cassian is one of them, he has to be.

It’s realistic to be hopeful, she isn’t being naive; he’s one of the toughest people she knows.  Look at all the shit he’s survived.  He has to be still alive.  He can’t not be.

She wants to be up there on that platform, wants to be there on that hideous slant of ruins, crawling into the wreckage, scrabbling with her bare hands, tearing him out of it, screaming for him to answer, screaming as her nerves scream constantly, Cassian, Cassian, _Cassian!_  

Her work crew is assigned to the next building along, where only the topmost storey has crumbled and the rest have simply settled below it, largely intact, with pillars aslant and walls still sound.  They are heading up on another platform to continue lifting the roof panels from that upper level and freeing those pinned beneath.  There are a lot of people still stuck up there.

_Those people need me._

_Cassian needs me._

_I volunteered for this mission because I knew I could do the work.  I have to do my job.  If that brick-heart Draven can keep his head and do what’s needed to help, then so can I._

Jyn pulls on her protective gloves and mask again, and levers herself up off the bench.

**

It’s mid-afternoon when she sees the first hover-dollies going up the neighbouring building, and the first bodies being removed.  Two are already in body-bags; then there’s a woman in a torn yellow dress, office-smart under the grime, and an adolescent whose delivery company uniform is red with blood, but who sits upright and shell-shocked beside her as they are carried down to ground level and the waiting hands of medics.

_Don’t think about the body-bags, don’t think about them, what’s inside, who’s inside…_

There’s a momentary hush nearby, the signal for quiet coming out from somewhere unseen, down inside the ruined top storey; hidden from her and her crew, someone knocks on a panel and listens for an answering knock beneath the rubble.  A small cheer goes up; that means they’ve heard knocking, maybe even voices.  Jyn steals glances over her shoulder as she waits for the signal to begin lifting again.  At the next building there’s a big grav-sled descending carrying a load of rubble, and going back with more workers, and more stretchers, and two more medical staff.

There’s a distant scream, muffled but horrible, as someone is wrenched out of the wreckage.  Jyn’s stomach turns over at the sound. 

Her own team raise the last of the main roof sections on their building and drag it back, clearing the way for access below.  At a signal, they are withdrawn, and a team of medics and dusty med-droids moves in to pick up the survivors who can be reached now.  Someone is operating one of the heat-seeking scanners again, checking how many more living bodies they have yet to reach.  As soon as their platform reaches the ground she excuses herself.  She dashes to the edge of the next ruin along, pushing her mask down again, scanning the searchers and their work.  Praying to see something some tiny clue, some breakthrough.  Just five minutes, she just has to see what’s going on for five minutes…

Another transport platform comes down, burdened with massive rubble; marble paving slabs, granite pillars, even what looks like a door, being hauled away to clear a path for the rescuers to get further in.  Behind it, two more hover-dollies float down, each with a medic clinging on the side.  She sees a tall young man with brown skin, still wearing part of a suit of white armour; he has an oxygen mask over his face and his right leg elevated; the medic seems to be keeping pressure on it just below the knee.  There’s an enormous amount of blood, pooled around him on the stretcher.  But the boy’s chest moves steadily, and two people run forward to help as the dolly reaches the street.

The man on the second stretcher sits up with a jerk as it comes to ground level, his body wracked with spasms, coughing till it seems he must be tearing his lungs open.  He’s struggling, almost falling off the stretcher with effort as each new cough slams out, wrenching his frame.  Large hands clutch at a water bottle, fumbling to get the cap back on and not spill the precious contents.  He turns her way as the medic helps him straighten up again, and she knows that hair, she knows that filthy jacket, she knows the red, red blood on his shirt and the sharp, sharp line of his profile.

She pushes past the first stretcher and reaches his side as he subsides, gasping and trying to re-open the water bottle.

“Cassian!”

His head flies up and a choking noise comes from him, she’s looking into his eyes and he stares back in shock and then drops the bottle unopened and reaches for her.  He’s shaking, he’s filthy and he smells of sweat and blood and dirt, and his arms go round her like bands of durasteel and lock her against his body.  She clings on, almost sobbing with relief, hearing him inhale with a noise like something ripping open.  He gasps her name.

“I’m here, I’m here…” she says, holding him, not letting herself cry.

This hard box of ribs, wheezing for air, this battered body, splashed with blood and gritty with filth, shuddering in her embrace, this beloved face pressing into her neck; he’s alive, he’s okay.  The hot unsteady breath on her skin is Cassian, alive.  She works her fingers into his tangled filthy hair and clutches his head to her breast.  Alive, alive, alive…

He’s trying to speak; his voice is a bare creak like a rusted door shutting. “How did you get here?”

“I volunteered, a lot of us did, the Bothans are here, Red Service, there’s a big relief effort getting going.  We’re going to get everyone out.”  Never mind the politics and the fact the fucking Empire hasn’t come yet, and the whole question of what the fuck they’ll do if the enemy ever _do_ turn up; she just wants him to know that there is some kind of help here. 

Cassian gives a little groan and pushes his brow into her throat.  His skin is hot.  After a moment he starts to cough again.  It’s a horrible choking sound, dry and thick at once, as though he’s trying to retch up half his guts with each exhalation.

“Here,” says the medic quietly, and Jyn looks round to see him holding out the water bottle.  She unlatches one arm to take it and hold it for Cassian; waits, consciously silencing all the words of fear that bubble up inside her, till he can breathe again, and take the water, and drink.

“He’s severely dehydrated,” the medic tells her.  “The respiratory distress is likely due to dust inhalation, it can cause an inflammation.  He should be okay long-term but he’ll need to be monitored for a few days in case there’s any thoracic infection.  The traumatic laceration to the soft tissue of the neck seems to be relatively minor; the triage team will examine and clean it for suturing.  They’ll decide if he needs to be assigned to one of the transports; we’re moving as many patients as possible to the undamaged med-centres south of the city.”

“Fine,” Jyn says, wishing she knew what some of that even meant.  _He should be okay,_ that bit at least doesn’t need to be translated.  And _undamaged med-centres_ , well, that’s wonderful news, for everyone else.  But she wants Cassian out of here, on that Bothan transport, by nightfall.  

He moves suddenly, sitting upright in her arms.  His breathing is rough, but less wheezy than it was a minute ago, before he started to cough.  “What happened to Tozer?” he whispers.

“Who’s Tozer?” That’s not Draven’s cover name; it’s not a name she’s ever heard before.  “You mean Mr Dralo?  He’s alright, I saw him earlier, he got out almost unhurt.  He’s been helping on a bucket chain.”

“Good for him,” Cassian croaks.  “I’m talking about the guy who was with me, Tozer, the ‘trooper, is he gonna be okay?”

The medic squints past them into the hubbub across the rubble-strewn street.  “The kid we pulled out with you?  He’s in triage at the moment.  He should make it.”  He takes the bottle back gently from Jyn. “We need to get you over there too now; help me free up this trolley for the next person, eh?”

“I’ll come with you,” Jyn says.  “My – my team’s been pulled back for a moment, they’ll be okay without me, I want to – I don’t want to leave you –“ Now he’s breathing more easily again, now he’s talking coherently and looking up at her with his eyes full of astonished love, the horror of having nearly lost him is really starting to seep in.  Her hands on the dirty fabric of his jacket are quivering slightly.  He could have died, Cassian could have died.  

She thinks of the times she’s held him in her arms, held his head on her breast like this, or felt his arms wrapped round her this way.  So many happy, tender, loving moments; and then the moments of sheer terror, moments when it seemed life was over, or about to be so. 

_I never want to have to think you dead again, I can’t stand it; and I’m going to have to stand it, aren’t I?  Oh my love, my love_ …

She kisses Cassian’s dusty hair.   “Let’s get you down to that field hospital, shall we?  And find your friend Tozer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm assuming that, as (according to wookieepedia) there is a universal sign for medical ships in the Star Wars universe, the Red Sigil, there's likely also to be an equivalent of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent. At least I hope there is. I've also borrowed one of jaded's headcanons about the existance of an in-universe equivalent of MSF/Doctors Without Borders - I hope you won't mind!


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